The United States and South Korea will launch the Ulchi Freedom Shield joint military exercise next Monday for 11 days, involving approximately 18,000 South Korean troops at a scale comparable to prior years. The drills follow North Korea's recent resumption of UN-banned ballistic missile tests and its reported troop deployments to support Russia in Ukraine. Additional large-scale exercises are planned later in August 2026 as part of efforts to transfer wartime operational command authority to Seoul.